The story of Bengaluru traffic never has a happy ending. At the end of the ride, we all just blame the roads, signals, vehicles and the people as we lose our patience in this slow-moving traffics. Amongst the chaos in between the roads, breaking the traffic rules have been quite a normal thing to many drivers.
Overtaking in slow-moving traffic is a usual manner amongst the motorists in this city. According to a report overtaking from the left which is one of road rules violation, have seen the most visible rise this year. The city traffic police data shows a big hike in the number of cases registered for “overtaking from the left” this year than in the past two years.
“Overtaking from the left” has seen a hike this year
According to a June 30th registry, a whopping 43,097 “overtaking from the left” offenses were registered which is very much higher than the 4,154 cases in 2018 and 4,208 cases in 2017. The officials have asked the traffic police that if overtaking from the left is being monitored on the roads or not. And shockingly, it has come to a notice that the police are not monitoring vehicles for “overtaking from the left”. It turned out that, vehicles blocking the “free-left” lanes at traffic junctions are being booked under the “overtaking from the left” offense.
“We are cracking down on overtaking from the left because we want to guarantee road discipline, which, in turn, will help prevent accidents,” said KV Jagdish, Deputy commissioner of police, traffic (east).
Jumping signals and footpath parking
The report has also revealed a growth in the cases of “jumping traffic signals”. A total of 5.46 lakh cases of offense were recorded in the first half of the year, compared with 6.37 lakh in the whole of 2018. After insertion, this alters to an increase of about 71%.
Moreover, nearly 25,000 cases of “parking on the footpath” have been registered until June 30, compared with 33,470 in 2018, an increase of about 25%.
“Rise in footpath parking is no shock as the number of vehicles is developing and people are finding it more difficult to find parking space. It is a good sign as they need to enforce the right of foot-traveler,” told Ashish Verma, an Associate professor with the department of civil engineering, Indian Institute of Science.
Increase in the number of vehicles and traffic congestions in the city has made the drivers lose their calm and break the traffic rules. However, the police have been asked by the officials to take strict measure for a traffic rules violation and keep the traffic less overcrowded 24×7.
